Violence and exploitation against sex female workers? It's the criminalization, stupid sexphobic! - part 1: march of sex female workers at Honduras in the Internacional Day of the Prostitute

Honduras: sex workers march for their rights

(Video: EFE)

Wednesday, June 03, 2015 | 10:40

Dozens of women of the Network of Sex Workers of Honduras marched Tuesday June 2 in Tegucigalpa to demand respect for their rights and justice for the murder of 19 of their colleagues between 2013 and 2014.

"We are not whores or prostitutes, we are sex workers and we demand justice", chanted the women during their journey to the Public Ministry in Tegucigalpa.

Sheathed in a pink shirt and many with their face covered with a mask, women also protested because of the discrimination and the violence of which they are victims.

"Justice, carry out actions for me" (in the original, "ponte en mis tacones", literally "put on my heels", a play of words with "ponte las botas", which means "carry out actions" - Note of the Translator), "No more discrimination and stigma" and "No more cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment," read in other banners that women carried, commemorating the International Day for the Sex Worker.

Among the protesters were included some aged more than 50 and 60.

"I dedicate myself to this work for 35 years, I have four daughters and I lost two sons. My situation is difficult, there are days that there is no money", told EFE Teresa Cardona, 59 years old.

She added she can not read and write because she had no chance to receive education and their daughters "are not sex workers", but dedicate themselves "to serving their homes and look after their children".

The women asked the Government of Honduras the regulation of the sex work so that they are guaranteed to access rights and decent and safe conditions for its exercise.

The lack of regulation "makes very often we suffer arbitrary detentions, extortion and threats, being recurrent cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment that shows itself as institutional violence", said women in a statement.

They also asked the Government zero impunity in the cases of the 19 sex female workers murdered, comprehensive care in health services and guarantee of their civil, political, cultural, economic and social rights.

"Similarly to the Honduran citizens we request you respect our decision to work as sex workers, a profession that should not be discriminated against or stigmatized", underlines the proclamation of the women.

Network of Sex Workers of Honduras is supported by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the United Nations (FM) and the Network of Sex Workers of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Source: EFE

El Comercio, Lima (Peru), June 3, 2015, http://elcomercio.pe/mundo/latinoamerica/honduras-trabajadoras-sexuales-marchan-sus-derechos-noticia-1815866

Comments by Men of Worth Newspaper / Periódico de los Hombres de Valía

The same newspaper El Comercio published, three months before, an article by BBC about San Diego, California, becoming a center of prostitution, bringing the case of a woman in sexual exploitation. I will comment it in the part 2. For a while, I will rise some points on the case above.

1) Something that proves that prostitution is not, for itself, bad and against the dignity of the women is that these prostitutes marched for their work, not only for themselves as individuals.

2) While Slut Walk is a criminal event in the streets of several countries, and by "criminal" I mean crimes as hate speech against men and offense toward Christianity, all of it by fearless girls with nude faces and sometimes more than their faces shouting nonsense phrases; some of those women at Honduras were with masks. Who these masked women were afraid of? Pimps? Policemen? Public officials? Abusive clients? Someone in the family or in the neighborhood finding out she is a prostitute?

3) Did you noticed that no one woman who likes this work is mentioned? Where is some woman who once said to her parents and her siblings she might become a sex worker, as I did? Yeah, I am kidding, I know how is hard not having a lovely family as mine. But though some of these women are working as prostitutes because of lack of options, they still ask for conditions to CONTINUE in this activity, not to GET OUT of it.

4) The illegalization of the prostitution and the pornography, that some feminists request, delivers the sex workers TO the organized crime, instead DELIVERING FROM it.

Abigail Pereira Aranha